PARIS: Nearly 38,000 French tax dodgers have come forward since 2013 when the Socialist government offered favourable treatment to secret foreign-account holders who owned up. The number of tax inspectors handling such cases has been quadrupled to cope with the surge in cases.
A total of 37,703 people have filed revised tax forms after admitting to holding secret bank accounts abroad, mainly in Switzerland, the finance ministry revealed.
The response, boosted by the Swissleaks revelations of over 100,000 people worldwide with secret accounts with the HSBC bank, has overwhelmed tax inspectors.
They have only closed 5,181 cases, working at a rate of 130 cases a week.
Their numbers have been increased from 25 to about 100 and seven new offices are to be opened in June, three in the Paris region and one each in the major cities of Marseille, Lyon, Bordeaux and Strasbourg, the ministry announced.
